Tuesday, August 27, 2013

This week’s
feature artifact was chosen because of its connection to Dr. Leonard (Len)
Hills, a well-known geologist at the University of Calgary. Dr. Hills was born
in Judah and passed away on August 4, 2013 in Calgary. Dr. Hills achieved great
things throughout his career as a geologist and influenced a great many lives. He will be missed.

This meteorite
was donated by the Hills family. The meteorite is part of a large meteorite
that exploded and fell over Bruderheim, a small town in Central Alberta, on March
4th, 1960.

PRMA X87.1522.1 Meteorite

The meteorite is
in our geology display, along with several other treasures that have been found
in the Peace Region, and we invite you down to the museum to see for yourself!

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

The museum is starting a new weekly feature where we will be highlighting an artifact of the week. The museum has a collection of over 8,000 artifacts, each of which are historically significant and feature a story. Every exhibit that we create features some of these objects but we thought we would bring even more objects out for you to see, in a digital format. Enjoy this new feature and do let us know if there is a specific object you would like to see.

This week’s
featured artifact is a projectile point that would have been used either as a
spear point or a dart point and is likely over 5,000 years old. It was found by
collector Hans Huber near his farm, between Peace River and the airport. This
is an atypical piece simply due to the colors of the material that was used.
Most chert or flint found in the area is black in color, but this piece is
filled with whites, greys, blues, and greens.

68.17.19 Projectile Point

This is only one
of our many stone tools on display, and we encourage you to come down to the
Peace River Museum, Archives and Mackenzie Centre to see the rest of our
excellent collection of stone tools. Feel free to ask about our stone tool
collection and to visit our library for more information on archaeology in
Alberta.

Friday, August 16, 2013

Over the summer we have been
rearranging our natural history display to give both a more comprehensive
overview of the regions natural history as well as giving more information
about the artifacts. We rearranged our geology display, giving it better
lighting and more identification, with an emphasis on the oil industry. Our
osteology (bone) display now not only speaks to the bison and other ice age
animals, but also several different animals that come from the north Peace
Region with an emphasis on comparativecraniology and dentition.
We also identified more from our palaeontology display, which emphasizes
ancient sea life in Alberta. Finally, we
improved our archaeology display, giving visitors the chance to see almost
every angle of our stone tools.

Our Natural History display.

The display features everything from
dinosaur bones, to a meteorite, to a partial bison spine, to arrowheads, and
even the tooth of a woolly mammoth. We
invite you down to the museum to get up close and personal with our artifacts
and to learn from our new display.

The Museum has been very fortunate to have two fantastic speakers over the last week. Both talented, informative, and fun speakers!

Eric Moller and Stephanie Capyk of Cardinal Creek Honey graced us with their sweet presence last Saturday, August 10th. They regaled us with stories of beekeeping and the various practices used in beekeeping.

Last night, August 15th, Teresa Griffith joined us to tell tales from her new book "York Boat Captain: 18 Life-Changing Days on the Peace River". Through laughter, stories, and fun, Captain Overboard (as she is sometimes known) shared some of her time on the Peace River with her audience, just enough to entice us to buy the book and read it for ourselves.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Have you ever met an author who was also a York boat
captain? No? Well, after you meet Captain Teresa Griffith, you will no longer
be able to say that.

Teresa had the audacity to become the first woman
captain of a York boat – a position reserved for men in the heyday of fur
trading and York boats in the 1800s. In fact, the crew of the fur-bearing boat
was all men. Leap ahead to 2011. We have
not only a female captain, but also a female crew member – not token females,
but hardworking, skilful participants carrying their weight literally and
figuratively – Teresa as captain (sweep) and Cheryll Ferguson-Welke as oarsman
along with her male counterparts.

Teresa Griffith’s book – York Boat Captain, 18 Life-changing Days on the Peace River is not
a women’s story, as such, but rather a people story – a documentation of the human spirit – merging
skill with emulating the activities of days gone by – business and survival.

In Teresa’s compelling, spellbinding and informative
book, she makes what might be considered mundane – the prep work – fascinating
– a good lead up to the adventure of the 18 days on the Peace River for whom
all involved was a life-changing experience.

Please see for yourself, at the launching of the
book York Boat Captain, 18 Life-changing
Days on the Peace River – Thursday,
August 15, 7:30 p.m. at the Peace River Museum, Archives and Mackenzie Centre.
Captain Teresa Griffith looks forward to chatting with you about her adventure
and signing her book, which will be for sale. Cash or cheque is acceptable.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Erik Moller and Stephanie Capyk of
Cardinal Creek Honey practice the gentle art of beekeeping in the County of
Northern Lights with Erik’s father Knut Moller. They describe themselves as
follows:“We're a couple of beekeepers
living on the edge of the Alberta prairie and northern boreal forest, one foot
firmly planted in parts northern, the other always itching to get onto the
ocean and into the mountains”

The Museum’s current exhibit Roots in the Peace, features a
contemporary photography exhibit of local organic producers in the Peace
Country and Cardinal Creek Honey can be seen in this collection. To compliment
this exhibit, Erik and Stephanie will be speaking about their experiences at
the Peace River Museum August 10th, 2013 at 3pm.This is a free event and will undoubtedly be
‘sweet’!